“Well, I've been in the city for 30 years and I've never once regretted being a nasty, greedy, cold-hearted, avaricious money-grubber... er, Conservative!” - Monty Python's Flying Circus, Season 2, Episode 11, How Not To Be Seen

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Correcting Racial Misconceptions

Cal Thomas's latest article is a pretty poor reflection on Race in America in the age of Obama.

As the president's approval ratings fall and rise and fall again, some of his supporters in journalism and politics are returning to days of old when the label "racist" could end any discussion and force the accused either into stunned silence, or groveling repentance. I suspect the tactic won't work this time because Obama supporters will have difficulty explaining how a mostly white country could elect a black man president last November and ten months later become a racist majority.

Sad. Nobody thinks that America is a majority racist country all of a sudden. Some would argue that Conservatism is a majority racist movement, but I'm not even going that far. All I will say is that it's clear that a lot of the most impassioned attacks on Obama are, at least in part, racially motivated. And that these racially motivated people are having an effect on the electorate as a whole; they keep their racism largely under wraps.

According to liberal doctrine, black people can never be racist because they are members of a victim class created by white liberals as a kind of modern plantation to keep blacks voting for liberal Democrats.

This a bastardization of the real argument. Black people have much less power than white people in our society. White Racism keeps black people in Ghettos; Black Racism is mildly annoying for White People. Liberals and Democrats want a society in which Blacks participate equally without being disparaged or attacked because of their race; Conservatives and Republicans want us all to shut up about race.

Not all or even most Conservatives are Racist in my opinion; but most virulent Racists are Conservative.